James McBride and Jamel Brinkley are on the longlist for the PEN Faulkner Award 2024 announced on Tuesday, February 6, 2024.
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, first handed out in 1981, is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year’s best works of fiction by living US American citizens. Some of the previous winners have been Imbolo Mbue in 2017 and Deesha Philyaw in 2021.
The jury this year comprises New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez, cartoonist, novelist, and poet Alan Michael Parker, as well as author and academic Lynn Steger Strong. This panel considered 445 eligible novels and short story collections by American authors published in the US during the 2023 calendar year. Submissions came from 205 publishing houses, including small and academic presses.
“This year’s list is a powerful reminder that American literature matters more than ever,” said PEN/Faulkner Awards Committee Chair Louis Bayard. “We are delighted to celebrate these gifted authors and the multivarious worlds they have brought to life.”
The writers of African descent who made the list are;
- Witness, Jamel Brinkley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride (Riverhead)
From this longlist, the judges will select five finalists for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in early March. The winning book—the “first among equals,” selected from among the five finalists—will be announced in April. The winner will be revealed at a ceremony in Washington DC on May 2.
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